Ildefonse said ponderously: "If your analysis is correct, we must undertake to secure the future against this… — Jack Vance

We need no chieftain; such folk eat more than their share.

"When one deals with the Murthe, the unthinkable becomes the ordinary, and Zanzel's repute carries no more weight than last year's mouse-dropping - if that much."

Human interactions, stimulated as they are by disequilibrium, never achieve balance. In even the most favorable transaction, one party—whether he realizes it or not—must always come out the worse.